Mine Eyes
by WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Walter has been wondering something for a while, and it comes out over coffee.


**It was hard to get my head out of the Here To Stay zone that it's been in, but I was re – reading an old history book of mine and figured they, this basic premise, Paige's interest in history, I could do something with that. So here's a short little oneshot.**

* * *

"Thank you," Paige said with a smile as Walter crossed into the dining area and handed her a mug of coffee. She tipped her head up so he could kiss her briefly.

"You're welcome," he said, sitting across from her with his own mug. "How was your shower?"

She was still wrapped up in her fluffy robe, her hair mostly dry, but still damp in a few places in the back. He loved that he could see her like this. As much as he loved seeing her in such a casual, intimate state in the garage, there was something about getting to experience it in her and Ralph's home. "It was lovely," she said. "Though I wish you'd been in there with me."

"Even after last time?"

She smirked over her coffee mug. "It was just a twisted knee. I've had worse."

"Sorry."

"Nah. It was my suggestion anyway, if you remember." She sipped at her coffee. "You pour yours first?"

Walter shook his head.

"Aw, but you don't like the cinnamon."

He shrugged. "It's an acquired taste." He hesitated before speaking again. "Is it alright if I ask you a question?"

Paige blinked, tipped her head. "Of course, Walter."

He looked down at his clasped hands. He shouldn't ask her this. It didn't matter. It didn't matter in the slightest. Not now, not when everything was in the past and the only present was what they were right now. But…it was a full year later, and the memories were still swirling around in his head. "When you told me that you loved me when I was up in the rocket…did you?"

Paige bit her lip, looking down at her coffee mug, taking a finger and tracing it around the rim. "It…it doesn't matter," Walter said. "It doesn't."

She was silent for a few seconds, staring at her mug but not appearing to see it. Then she began to speak. " _The hour of my death now drawing on, the tender love I owe you forceth me, my case being such, to commend myself to you_ ," Paige said, her eyes half closed, " _and to put you in remembrance with a few words of the health and safeguard of your soul, which you ought to prefer before all wordly matters, and before the care and pampering of your body, for the which you have cast me into many calamities and yourself into many troubles._ "

Walter was frowning. "What?"

Paige lifted her eyes to him. "When she was dying, Katherine of Aragon wrote a letter to Henry VIII. She was his first wife. He was looking forward to her death. I memorized part of it when I was twenty – two." She took a breath and continued. " _For my part, I pardon you everything, and I wish to devoutly pray God that he will pardon you also. For the rest, I commend unto you our daughter Mary, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I have heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants, I solicit the wages due them, and a year more, lest they be unprovided for._ "

She looked back at Walter, and appeared to be preparing to speak again, but he was still confused. "What does this have to do with…"

"When Henry wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, he convinced himself that Katherine wasn't a virgin when they met and therefore their marriage was illegitimate, so he could marry whoever he wanted. And he started ignoring her, belittling her, and refusing to let her see their daughter. He wanted her dead before Anne gave birth to any children because the people of England considered Katherine the Queen, but if she was dead then they'd have to accept his marriage to Anne. There have been rumors that Katherine was poisoned."

Walter frowned. "That's unacceptable. Certainly."

"I know. But…the way she ended this letter, Walter…" Paige shook her head slowly. " _Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things_." She bit her lip. "She still loved him that much, Walter."

He still had absolutely no idea where she was going with this. But it was clearly important to her. "Okay."

"When Drew left, and then started to not return calls, and never came back to us…I read that book in a library, the one about Henry VIII's wives, and that part, it always confused me so much. _How_ could she still love him after all of that? After the hell he put her through? I pitied her, Walter. I pitied her beyond the unfairness of her situation. And when I finally realized that I was no longer in a relationship, I read that passage again. I read it over and over, until I could recite it. And I thought to myself that I wasn't going to be like that. Screw Drew. He didn't deserve what he could have with us."

Her eyes dropped again. "And so when I was mad at you…I kept it in my head again. I was trying to get over you by convincing myself that if I didn't, I'd be the type of person that stronger people pity. You acted like a jerk, but I went overboard in pushing you away because I thought it was making me strong. It wasn't the same type of situation...but I told myself it was, and I had to protect myself. So…as afraid as I was for your life, I still believed, at the time, that I was just saying what I had to say." She sighed. "But…" she looked up and smiled, reaching over and put her hands over his. "But yeah, Walter. I loved you then. I'd been loving you for a while by that point."

Walter nodded, more in acknowledgement that he heard her than anything else.

"But Walter…" Paige gave him a tiny smile. "You know none of that matters, right? Even if I hadn't loved you then…" She shook her head, the smile growing. "I'm so in love with you now."

"I know." He smiled. "I know, I just…that memory…it's so clear in my head, and I remember how it made me feel, and…" He cleared his throat. "It feels nice to know I can remember that…happily."

She squeezed his hands. "Yeah, you can."

"I love you," he said, lifting their hands up so he could kiss one of hers.

'I love you, too." Giving him a tender smile, Paige dropped her voice into a lower, more intimate one that he only heard at times like these, when they were alone. "And mine eyes desire you above all things."


End file.
